As I reported yesterday, after reruns of Pawn Stars pulled in less than a million viewers following Tuesday night History Channel powerhouse Curse of Oak Island, the network decided to staunch the ratings bleeding by plugging in the episode of Ancient Aliens originally scheduled to air last week on H2, S07E13 “The Great Flood.” The nice thing about this is that History’s ratings are reported by Nielsen while H2’s are not. This means that when ratings are released around 3 PM ET today, we’ll have our first glimpse at how many people are watching original episodes of Ancient Aliens in a very long time. I’ll update this post when the ratings are in. [Update: Nielsen is delaying the release of the ratings due to the Christmas holiday.]

Segment 1The conceit of this episode is that world flood myths are a true and reflect an actual event from ancient history. This seems like a great time to promote my edited reprint of Sir James George Frazer’s collection of flood myths, which I published under the title, not coincidentally, The Great Flood. It is, for perhaps understandable reasons, my best-selling reprint. It’s available as a print book or as an e-book if you need something to do with your Christmas gift cards! Anyway, after the opening credits, we start with the Biblical account of the Flood and its parallels in Mesopotamian, Hindu, and Mayan sources. Kathleen McGowan Coppens is on hand to summarize the Genesis account of Noah, and various other talking heads summarize other cultures’ flood myths. The narrator concedes that most believe that the Flood is a myth; however, the narrator cites “1200 different cultures around the world” who share a flood myth of some kind as evidence that the event really took place, and are unconnected. This is only partially true; as Frazer noted a century ago, there are a few independent flood myths which gave rise to many different variants among cultures. The biblical version, in particular, has heavily influenced many, and due to the work of missionaries made many non-Western flood stories conform more closely to the Western version. This is especially true in Native American flood myths, where Christian and non-Christian Native informants told different versions of the same flood story. Guess which one was closer to the Biblical version. The narration tells us that a team of scientists called the Holocene Impact Working Group claims that thousands of years ago an asteroid struck the Indian Ocean, and the resulting tsunami could have caused ancient flood myths. Evidence of this, they say, is the appearance of marine fossils in high places—a claim so old that even Leonardo da Vinci rejected it as unscientific in his notebook (entry 987). This is one of those claims that is just barely possible but not probable. The Holocene Group previously appeared on History’s The Universe in 2012, and geologist Jody Bourgeois explained why their claims don’t hold water in Geology back in 2009. Andrew Collins tells us that “many ancient texts” refer to a period of fire before the Flood, which he likens to an asteroid breaking up in mid-air. These texts are mostly all versions of the so-called Prophecy of Adam, probably best known from Flavius Josephus, who spoke of “Adam’s prediction that the world was to be destroyed at one time by the force of fire, and at another time by the violence and quantity of water” (Antiquities 1.70, trans. William Whiston). That these were traditionally understood as two different events is clear from 2 Peter 3:3-7, which speaks of the Flood as the first destruction and fire as the destruction to come. These were always meant to be two separate events, as confirmed by Berosus, who spoke of them distinctly (Seneca, Natural Questions 3.29). However, late sources ran them together, first by suggesting that the prophecy predicted fire or water (Ṣa‘id al-Andalusi, Al‐tarif bi-tabaqat al-umm 39.7-16), and then that both happened at the same time. It is only in the late Middle Ages that we read of stars crashing to earth just before the Flood (Al-Maqrizi, Al-Khitat 1.40). From such stories and imagination Edmund Halley suggested in the late 1600s that a comet had caused Noah’s Flood. This is an old story. Collins tells us that a layer of Ice Age charcoal known as the Usselo Horizon consistent with a global conflagration is therefore proof of the Flood because the conflagration occurred with the Flood. The Usselo Horizon has been correlated with the Clovis Layer in North America; however, it is not uniform around the world—or, indeed, present outside Western Europe and North America. This Ice Age charcoal is also used as evidence of the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis currently advocated by Graham Hancock as the cataclysm that destroyed an Atlantis-like civilization. Recent research suggests that the charcoal layer is the result of massive wildfires, but not of a meteor, comet, or asteroid impact.Segment 2At Johns Hopkins University, scientists discussed asteroid deflection technology to prevent an extinction like the one the killed the dinosaurs. The show then asks whether extraterrestrials were redirecting asteroids to destroy the earth. “We are talking about technology that equals ours today,” Giorgio Tsoukalos says, revealing his paucity of imagination when it comes to aliens, before allowing that perhaps their technology could be somewhat better than ours. Rabbi Ariel Bar Tzadock claims—without stating his source—that “legends” describe an asteroid swinging to earth from “behind the sun” to strike the ocean. I don’t recall reading that anywhere, much less his claim that the Flood was “an attack, an assault on humanity.” Now, naturally, we can’t go through a whole episode about the Flood without reference to the Fallen Angels (the Watchers), so our next stop is of course Mt. Hermon, where in 1 Enoch the Watchers descended to Earth from heaven. We examine the ancient temple atop Mt. Hermon and its stele, which in Greek says “According to the command of the greatest and holy God, those who take an oath proceed from here.” This has long been associated with the oath the Watchers swear on Hermon in 1 Enoch 6:4: “And they all answered him and said: ‘Let us all swear an oath, and all bind ourselves by mutual imprecations not to abandon this plan but to do this thing’” (trans. R. H. Charles). But rather than see this as a Jewish reflection of a pagan cult, the show assumes that 1 Enoch is true and therefore the Flood was designed to wipe out the Nephilim, the offspring of human women and (extraterrestrial) Watchers. This is all very familiar material and has been covered on the show many times.Segment 3Now we are at the Gulf of Khambhat (Cambay) in India, where two sunken cities were discovered more than a decade ago. These cities are not old enough to have anything to do with the alleged Flood, but the show pretends that they are 9,000 years old, based on fantasies promoted by Hindu fundamentalists. Stylistically, the sites are closer to Harrapan culture, around 2000 BCE. The 9500-year-old date comes from controversial carbon dating of a piece of wood, which most archaeologists believe is actually a piece of an ancient forest subsumed by the Arabian Sea and not associated with the city. Next we view Göbekli Tepe in Turkey because Andrew Collins is on, and this is his hobbyhorse. Robert Schoch, the fringe geologist, believes that the site was destroyed by a Flood, though there is no actual evidence for this. He believes that the stone circles were covered over to protect them from a Flood, not, as archaeologists assume, to symbolically close them. Schoch does not explain why each circle was sealed at a different time if there were only one Flood. Following this, we look at Gunung Padang in Indonesia, a megalithic site on a hill (claimed to be a pyramid) and advocated by both Frank Joseph and Graham Hancock as a remnant of a pre-Ice Age civilization based on extreme dating produced by the Indonesian government under the direction of an official who holds fringe beliefs about Atlantis. The dates were obtained from vegetation layers within the hill, not from anything associated with the megaliths themselves. Western archaeologists believe the site is medieval. Sabina Magliocco, a professor of folklore at California State University, Northridge claims that the story of Atlantis is a “sacred narrative” that was “preserved” by Plato rather than a story that he made up out of thin air, as nearly all Classicists assume. She also claims that Atlantis had a “great, advanced civilization,” which does not appear in Plato at all. Their culture is described as pretty much identical to other fantasy lands of Greek myth. She then claims that Atlantis “was one of the continents destroyed by the Great Flood,” which also does not appear in Plato, though the wording of the end of the unfinished Critias suggests Plato was drawing on the Greek Flood myth of Deucalion as his model for the end of Atlantis. (It is, however, a key claim in Ignatius Donnelly’s Atlantis.) How could she get so much wrong? Schoch therefore concludes from all of this that there was a “cycle of civilizations” destroyed by a “catastrophe” around 10,000 BCE—though even he seems to recognize that there is very little evidence for an actual global flood. He then asserts that a Dark Age followed until around 3000 BCE. Segment 4In this segment we look at the Dead Sea Scrolls to review the contents of the Genesis Apocryphon, which Kathleen McGowan Coppens summarizes. This is a little complicated, so let’s simplify it. Coppens claims that alien baby Noah “lit up the room with his eyes,” but the fragmentary text actually says “he lifted his face, and his eyes shone like the s[un].” It is not clear whether this is metaphorical. However, the rest of the claim is true: Noah’s father wonders whether his wife had been impregnated by a Watcher: “Then I considered whether the pregnancy was due to the Watchers and Holy Ones, or (should be ascribed) to the Nephil[im], and I grew perturbed about this child” (trans. John C. Reeves). This is a late text, one that is obviously looking to expand on the Genesis narrative. Genesis, though, says at 6:9 that he was “perfect in all his generations.” Thus, in the Genesis Apocryphon no less an authority than Enoch himself tells Noah’s father that the baby belongs to him and is not from the Watchers. Despite this, the ancient astronaut theorists agree that Noah is probably an alien. They then entirely undercut this by claiming that Noah has “genetic” purity uncontaminated with Watcher-alien DNA. Later, he will be named some kind of better quality of alien. Jason Martell is upset that the gods stopped interacting with people and breeding giants before the Flood. Rob Simone, credited hilariously as the author of the Epic of Gilgamesh, offers some speculation about the need to expunge alien influence to develop the human potential, and the show does not acknowledge that Simone is actually an L.A.-area ufology radio talk show host and that his Epic of Gilgamesh is a short compilation of public domain texts. Big deal. I did that, too, but I don’t claim it’s any great achievement.Segment 5Now we’re off to hunt for Noah’s Ark! We look at a large cemetery near the modern Mt. Ararat in Turkey, and Coppens suggests that the ancient cemetery—which she claims dates back 10,000 years—was a holy site because it was believed to be buried by Noah was to be assured of resurrection. OK, but how do we reconcile the date of the cemetery with Biblical chronology? The numbers don’t fit if we assume that the genealogies in the Bible are true. And if we don’t assume they are true, why would we assume the Flood story is literally true? Oh, well. We’re already discussing the size of the Ark now and how many animals could really have fit into it. Giorgio Tsoukalos suggests that the Ark actually preserved DNA, not animals. (If they knew their stuff, they would know that the Gilgamesh version of the Flood story actually mentions taking the seed of living things!) This whole thing is rather silly since it presumes the correctness of the Biblical narrative rather than any other version of the Flood myth around the world. (The Greeks, for example, put no animals on Deucalion’s ark.) Segment 6Finally, we look at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault where since 2008 samples of plant seeds have been kept against the possibility of cataclysm. The narrator, citing a relatively close buzz by an asteroid in 2013, reminds us that heavenly cataclysms are inevitable and that we should cower in fear from destruction from the sky. The narrator asks whether extraterrestrials will (a) cause an asteroid strike or (b) fail to prevent such a catastrophe. David Childress tells us again to be afraid of what the aliens (calling them “extraterrestrial gods”) will do, and William Henry informs us (following Charles Fort) that we are the aliens’ property and they will wipe us out. Linda Moulton Howe and Giorgio Tsoukalos both claim that the aliens are actively working for our survival because we are their children. The narrator concludes with a compromise position, allowing that the aliens may simply be planning to watch how we deal with a cataclysm as some kind of test, and then the narrator reinforces the message of fear by reminding us yet again that destruction is imminent. In short: Merry Christmas; you’re all going to die.

Just wow! Great review as always. As a Christian I have had trouble reconciling the Old Testament with scientific provable history/prehistory. I shake my head at how everyone on these shows love to take quotes from any "source" they can find and make it say whatever they want. Also just for a point of reference, in 4 years of church and as a Bible study group leader, i have heard one, yes one sermon that touched briefly on the flood. If I mentioned Nephilim (apologize for any spelling/grammar mistakes), at church, 90% would have no clue what I was even talking about. (I don't subscribe to giants at all). Most churches at least where I live stick to New Testament with the most common Old Testament being the Laws. Sorry, Jason if I rambled. That being said, again, wow!
Keep up the awesome reviews and info. Love it all!
And Merry Christmas, Kwanza, Hannukah, Saturnalia, Festivus, or whatever else anyone here celebrates.

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Mike B

12/24/2014 05:09:40 am

Just one more thing. Have you ever read William F Drakenbrings Beyond Star Wars. I came across a copy not long after my first reading of EVD Chariots of the Gods. Great....wait..."Great" piece of fringe history (Crap).
Again keep up the great work!

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Clete

12/24/2014 07:12:07 am

Just another thank you for your reviews. I found your site when I got curious about Scott Wohler's background and what his expertice was to determine that the Kensington Rune Stones were true artifacts of a Viking or Templar voyage. I enjoy the way you write and site actual sources for you conclusions. Thank You again and Merry Christmas.

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Not the Comte de Saint Germain

12/24/2014 07:28:09 am

Magliocco is a Wiccan and specializes in neopagan studies, so ancient text are probably not her strength. Still, it's not hard to find a translation of Plato's dialogues and read what it says. A darker possibility is that her religious background may bias her toward mystical interpretations. (I don't think Wicca has any close connection with fringe beliefs about Atlantis, but neopagan and New Age belief systems do have a tendency to cross-pollinate.) There are plenty of Christian scholars who do levelheaded work in religious studies despite their personal beliefs, defying the contingent of fundamentalists who try to warp scholarship to defend their dogma. I would hope a Wiccan scholar behave like the former instead of the latter, but if she's misrepresenting Plato as badly as you say, I can't help wondering.

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EP

12/24/2014 08:00:49 am

Given that Wicca is a mixture of Theosophy and modern revival of Medieval rituals mistakenly believed to be pre-Christian, they are indeed a group at high risk for Atlantisits infection :)

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Clint Knapp

12/24/2014 02:46:19 pm

Oh, I wouldn't just chalk it up to any old Theosophy, either. Gardner himself cited the heroin-addled ramblings of Aleister Crowley and his time with Crowley's O.T.O. among his biggest influences in creating the religion. Nothing says "trustworthy source of wisdom" like an avowed and unapologetic drug addict.

Only Me

12/24/2014 07:31:08 am

I'll be honest. I waited patiently for the inevitable aliens-Flood connection. All I got in return was recycled material already covered in previous episodes. Again.

The only interesting part, the Usselo Horizon, was obviously AA's attempt to conflate the Horizon with the Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) boundary, formerly known as the Cretaceous–Tertiary (K–T) boundary.

I hope everyone on AA gets Usselo Horizon charcoal in their stockings for Christmas.

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EP

12/24/2014 07:50:33 am

" I hope everyone on AA gets Usselo Horizon charcoal in their stockings for Christmas."

That would actually be pretty cool. I mean, if someone put Usselo Horizon charcoal into my stocking, I'd give them mad props :)

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Only Me

12/24/2014 08:44:12 am

Yeah, coal is so...yesteryear. ;)

StrongStyleFiction

12/24/2014 04:34:26 pm

"(If they knew their stuff, they would know that the Gilgamesh version of the Flood story actually mentions taking the seed of living things!)"

This is the stuff that tickles me to no end. The things that they could use but don't know of, because none of them actually read anything. I swear, I've seen a handful of instances of this. The fact that these morons are paraded on television as experts on anything other than failure is disturbing.

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Kal

12/25/2014 08:12:52 am

Great floods are similar in cultures that lived by rivers or oceans. This does not mean that 'the Bible flood' is the one they are all talking about, even if as a Christian it's supposed to be believed that way. To make it seem like a comet or asteroid did it, is fiction, and is impossible to prove. Maybe they will find the Ark while the other show will find the Grail and someone will find the Yule log of Santa, his petrified poop, at the North Pole. These shows should not be on History. They should be on a fantasy channel.

Some of the speculators think that these ancient cultures are just recalling the ice age when when their seashore communities flooded at the end, but that isn't proven either.

No one has found the Ark of Noah, but many have tried. The problem is that the ark isn't there anymore. It was made of wood. Wood decays over time. It has not been petrified in ice. Also there is no indication from Genesis that Noah and his offspring kept the boat intact. They probably took it apart to build the city.

As for seeds, it was plant seeds, not DNA. They didn't understand DNA back then.

The Ark was not an alien ship. But what doesn't make sense is the space required to house and feed that many animals, something that even pastors can't explain to me. The thing was as large as a modern cruise ship. No way were there enough rooms, or enough food. The animals would have either eaten the other animals, or starved.

Really they missed the opportunity to do a Christmas mystery story.

Ho ho ho...

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Kal

12/25/2014 08:17:09 am

Also place names have changed since Genesis. The current Mt. Ararat is not the same mountain as the one called that in the Bible.

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Roger Smith

12/27/2014 07:41:23 am

My favorite part is when the three Chinise guys bring an offering of gold to the star baby.

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Paul Ramer

7/21/2015 10:12:09 am

The question about the amount of space and food for this many animals. One quote pretty much sums up how it was possible. Through god all things are possible. All of the atoms and molecules in their body , god is in control of them . If he wants your body to go without food and not feel hunger he can do that. We are talking about a planet breathing god. Our small minds could never comprehend the abilities of our god , he is mighty.

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CHF01

12/26/2014 04:08:26 am

I have a theory of my own.
The Reptillians, The Watchers, The Annunkai and The Greys all conspired to obliterate humans. What other possible explanation could there be??

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Only Me

12/26/2014 05:12:11 am

That...the Reptilians, Watchers, Annunaki and Greys don't exist, and the Flood is a Biblical myth?

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A.fahey

12/27/2015 08:30:45 pm

Mars hit earth ,that's another explanation and the greys couldn't stop it

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Mc

12/26/2014 01:46:28 pm

«Giorgio Tsoukalos suggests that the Ark actually preserved DNA, not animals. (If they knew their stuff, they would know that the Gilgamesh version of the Flood story actually mentions taking the seed of living things!»

Rael says that in his first book. The elohim preserved cells of each living thing in the ark. Cells that were used to recreate those animals after.

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Kal

12/30/2014 06:23:16 am

Science fiction books have speculated on the comet and ark story too, but they are fiction. It doesn't seem that the AA guys know the difference. Having just seen a rerun of this episode last night, I conclude they don't even care about their own alleged facts. At one end they claim the end of the last ice age for the ark, (not Biblical), while then they claim the Younger Dryas (which was laster), and a third time they claim 9,5000 BC, and others, 7,000 BC.

The sunken Indian ruins are from only 4,000 years ago, not 7,000 and not 9,000 years ago. The eruption of a volcano and an earth quake at the time sunk the city. It is not from the flood.

Also Puma Punku has nothing what so ever to do with the flood. Sea shells were found there. That is not proof of anything. It means way back in time, long before us, that area was a lake at sea level.

The DNA bank? Really? Like in Titan AE? Come on, that's a cartoon from the 1990s.

The ark was actually about as large as a modern cruise ship so they could not have stored every animal, which is true. How does that make the leap to DNA bank? They might as well claim Noah was a watcher. Oh wait, they did. That's laughable. Nowhere but in their weird ideas could he have been an aliens.

Is everything an alien with these people? For crying out loud. It was funny though. That terrible CGI alien Noah was a gut buster.

The difference between assuming the biblical genealogies are true and the Flood story is true is that biblical genealogies are not meant to be totally complete. They just mention who the author of the text considers to be important names. The ancient Hebrew word for father can also be used to mean "ancestor" or "grandfather" and the word for son can be used to mean "grandson" or "descendant." I think it is very likely that there was some sort of great catastrophic flood in human history. Almost every culture has a flood story. The question to me isn't whether or not there was a flood, but how big it was. Was it global or regional? There have been numerous rises in sea level and outburst floods/megafloods throughout Earth's history. Plato even speaks of an enormous flood happening 9000 years before his time in one of his writings. The way these Ancient Aliens episodes make these statements as if they are fact is absurd. I find it far more likely that a supernatural being who rules over the entire universe would care about Earth and its inhabitants than aliens who exist in it. Why would aliens who live in our universe give a shit about us and ruling over us?

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Stuart

4/5/2015 12:34:34 am

Nice to see everyones thinking about this - my only comment would be that we really don't know and in that case any theory is worth a consideration.

I watched the Nat Geo show about the 3750 years old Babylonian cuneiform writing on a tablet given to a London museum which literally describes the flood and a how to make a coracle 60m in diameter in which to house all the animals and a selected few humans on the earth ... you know the story. What is really interesting is that it suggested this would be made by one guy and his family in 7 days and that the gods at the time warned him that it was going to happen and provided him with the schematics for the "Ark" he was to use. They actually built the largest coracle ever in modern times with these instructions scaled down to 12m diameter and it took many skilled workers over 6 weeks to make it with modern tools (or something like that). The idea was that it was to hold the entire community where it was built with their animals.

As a scientist, I'm always looking for the logic and proof that things could be true - and part of being a scientist you have to keep your mind open to the fact that you don't know everything, which means that you listen to all evidence and apply the most logical theory UNTIL something else comes along which is better. In this case logic suggests there was no flood at all and this is just a story. But there were floods which affected the world where this language and writings described - probably many floods over 5000 years according to the researcher providing this information from studies of cores taken all over the area - so many flood stories may have been recorded. She thinks not one big flood. Then, we have to consider how many people were in that area at the time - at a guess it would be reasonable to say 10-20 million ?? Really I don't know but not, say, a billion. And this is the arabic world who didn't know that there were other continents - so this was the world, the whole world and there was no other known world. What was the total number animals in that world? You can see where this is going - its a matter of scale. So its reasonable to think that perhaps this happened on a small scale to save a certain population of animals and people from a big flood.

Then, if you wanted to extrapolate this to encompass the actual known world, you might need some external help to avoid a "great flood" a few thousand years ago. Certainly, we would need help now yet alone back then. So - if there was a big flood all over the entire arabic world 5000 years ago, they would likely have needed some help to build an ark suitable for survival for a new beginning. AA is just giving you another perspective. Take it or leave it, the fact is we, as a technologically aware species, were not there. Additionally, after building the coracle to the instructions at approximately 1/35 of the size, whilst the thing floated, it was taking in water and the community didn't feel safe bringing themselves or their animals on board.

Therefore a true scientist would take on board what was said by everyone and evaluate the most likely reality IF there was a flood and how they were most likely to have avoided the total obliteration of all species in the known world at that time ... depending on your perception of the known world, and assuming that you actually think its not just a story to scare the kids, the solution may involve external help; in which case you simply have to concede the possibility that AA theorists could have a point.

The bottom line is, we just don't know - so perhaps we should keep our minds open to all possibilities however outside the comfort zone they may be.

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A Fahey

12/25/2015 08:57:25 pm

So has anybody figured out that Mars hit earth and that is what caused the great flood

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The GRIM!

5/4/2015 09:07:52 am

Can we not preserve Tsoukolos! We don't need a moron like that having kids!

When are you geneticly altered baboons going to realize that Mars hit Earth 15000 tears ago and that is what caused the great flood.I have been claiming this for years to no avail.I would like to discuss this with someone from Ancient Aliens to show them why I claim this...

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Han Kloosterman

12/24/2015 01:32:49 am

As a genetically altered baboon, I have managed to struggle through 3 years of elementary school, and I got my certificate.
As soon as Fahey gets his, I recommend that he does some reading.
Peter Warlow, Styg Flodmark. The tippetop model, the instability of the Earth. As soon as the Earth starts careening, the oceans are out of equlibrium, and THERE comes the mega-tsunami.

Read the flood myths once more, and you'll find the connection, especially in S.America and at 180 degrees in insular E.Asia.
So, the tippetop axis passes through Africa and the Pacific - as found by Clay et al, 1984, Nature. Only, they didn't understand what they found.

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Afahey

12/25/2015 09:04:48 pm

Hey Han I can't figure out if you realized that Mars hit earth or not. The planet is still being affected by this event hence the reason for the earthquakes around the ring of fire. All the water on Mars stuck to earth and the evidence of this event is all over earth

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A.fahey

12/27/2015 05:02:00 pm

from the story of Noah..."and the windows of heaven were opened"because bonfire that the planet was covered by clouds

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I'm an author and editor who has published on a range of topics, including archaeology, science, and horror fiction. There's more about me in the About Jason tab.